Influence of Gender Mainstreaming on Women Participation in Implementation of County Development Projects in Kenya: a Case of Kilifi County

Abstract

The role of women in development is very important although their impact in societal development has been ignored ever since. It is therefore worth for a detailed research to be carried out to examine their relevance in development in the 21st century. Therefore, this study was carried with the aim of examining the determinants of gender mainstreaming in county development projects implementation in Kenya: a case of Kilifi County. The study was guided by four objectives that included examining the influence of: cultural practices; gender awareness; availability of resources; and organizational procedures on gender mainstreaming in development projects implementation in Kilifi County. This study used a descriptive survey design. The target population was 150 respondents drawn from the NGOs and county government’s projects employees. A sample size of 109 respondents as calculated by Yamane formula was used. In relation to data analysis, the fully filled research questionnaires were first subjected to scrutiny to establish whether they met the requirements of the study. The research instruments that were suitable for the study were coded in order to be keyed into the SPSS software. This was carried out by 2 data analysis experts and the analysis was done by use of both inferential and descriptive statistics using SPSS (version 24.0) and presented through percentages, means, standard deviations and frequencies. The data was split down into different aspects of gender mainstreaming in development projects implementation. This offered a systematic and qualitative answer to the study objectives. To help generalize the findings the collected data was grouped using percentages and measures of central tendency. Descriptive and inferential statistics including cross-tabulation, frequencies and percentages, mean and standard deviation was used for comparison. The hypothesis was tested by use of the regression analysis model given as follows: Y=β0+β1x1+ β2x2+ β3x3+β4x4 +e Where: Y = represented the dependent variable i.e gender mainstreaming in projects implementation, β0… β4are the Regression Coefficient, X1= Cultural practices, X2= Gender awareness, X3 = Resources availability, X4 = Organizational procedures, e = Stochastic term. From the field results 100 questionnaires were dully filled and returned to be used in drawing conclusions. The first objective touched on cultural practices and gender mainstreaming in projects implementation and majority of the respondents strongly agreed to the idea. The hypothesis further confirmed that cultural practices have a significant influence on the implementation of county development projects in Kilifi County (β = 0.459; t = 3.530; p < 0.05). Also, when testing the second objective’s hypothesis, it was noted that gender awareness has a significant influence on the implementation of county development projects (β = 0.491; t = 2.98; p < 0.05). In relation to availability of resources, when testing the hypothesis, it was established that availability of resources has a significant influence on the implementation of county development projects (β = 0.401; t = 2.21; p > 0.05). In relation to the final objective that sought to establish the influence of organizational procedures on the implementation of county development projects, the general trend indicated that majority of the respondents supported the idea. In testing of the hypothesis it was agreed that organizational procedures have a significant influence on the implementation of county development projects (β = 0.440; t = 2.44; p > 0.05).